History UsefulNotes / TheSpanishFlu

No doubt due in part to the wartime censorship, the Spanish Flu has long been overshadowed by World War I. In older works set during the relevant time period, you'll be lucky if there's any mention at all that an apocalyptic influenza outbreak was going on at the same time as the war. This has been somewhat corrected in recent decades, and nowadays, the Spanish Flu will, at the very least, merit a token mention in most fiction about World War I. It also tends to be brought up [[HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure as a comparison]] in works dealing with ThePlague.

The Spanish Flu was a global pandemic that ravaged the world in the late 1910s, peaking in late 1918 as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was winding down. The pandemic is conservatively estimated to have killed about 50 million people, more than died in the war, and some estimates go as high as 100 million. Furthermore, it infected some 500 million people at a time when the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. To this day, it ranks as the largest and deadliest pandemic in modern human history and the second deadliest ever recorded (beaten out solely by TheBlackDeath).

* ''[[VideoGame/Vampyr2018 Vampyr]]'' is set in London during the flu pandemic. It is especially pertinent because the player character, Jonathan, is a doctor and dealing with the health of various NPCs forms a large part of the experience.

* ''[[VideoGame/Vampyr2018 Vampyr]]'' is set in London during the flu pandemic.

The Spanish Flu was a global pandemic that ravaged the world in the late 1910s, peaking in late 1918 as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was winding down. The pandemic is conservatively estimated to have killed about 50 million people, more than died in the war, and some estimates go as high as 100 million. Furthermore, it infected some 500 million people at a time when the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. To this day, it ranks as the largest and deadliest pandemic in human history.

As you might imagine, influenza normally poses the greatest risk to children and the elderly. For reasons that are still not entirely clear, the Spanish Flu instead targeted healthy young adults. At the time, most doctors assumed that influenza was caused by bacteria. In fact, influenza is caused by viruses, but they were too small to see with the microscopes that were available in the 1910s. It is now known that the Spanish Flu was caused by the [=H1N1=] virus, which was also responsible for the much smaller "swine flu" pandemic in 2009. While the 2009 strain was far less lethal than the 1918 strain, it nonetheless shared its proclivity for targeting healthy young adults.

* An early episode of ''Series/{{NUMB3RS}}'' involves several people falling victim to a mysterious illness that turns out to be the Spanish Flu, nearly a century after the original epidemic. It turns out [[spoiler:a lab sample of the virus was intentionally released by a WellIntentionedExtremist scientist who believed that the medical industry was about to make a huge mistake that could [[TheNeedsOfTheMany cost millions of lives]] in the event of a spontaneous outbreak of said virus, so he engineered a limited outbreak to highlight the error in hopes that it would be corrected before a true epidemic occurs.]]

* ''WebAnimation/ExtraCredits'' did an episode on it for the hundredth anniversary in 2018.

The pandemic almost certainly did not actually originate in Spain. Spain was a neutral country during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, so unlike the contending countries, which censored the spread of the disease in order to not signal weakness to enemy nations and not hinder their own morale, Spaniards simply reported on it more honestly, creating the false impression that it was especially bad there. However, the name stuck. The actual origin of the pandemic is unknown to this day, although the most popular theories claim that it began in the United States, China, or somewhere else in Europe. The first known case was reported in Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4, 1918 but this was censored. Other early reports came from France (Brest), Germany and the United Kingdom.

The pandemic almost certainly did not actually originate in Spain. Neutral Spain simply reported on it more honestly due to the lack of wartime censorship, creating the false impression that it was especially bad there. However, the name stuck. The actual origin of the pandemic is unknown to this day, although the most popular theories claim that it began in the United States, China, or somewhere else in Europe. The first known case was reported in Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4, 1918 but this was censored. Other early reports came from France (Brest), Germany and the United Kingdom.

The pandemic almost certainly did not actually originate in Spain. Neutral Spain simply reported on it more honestly due to the lack of wartime censorship, creating the false impression that it was especially bad there. However, the name stuck. The actual origin of the pandemic is unknown to this day, although the most popular theories claim that it began in either China or the United States. The first known case was reported in Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4, 1918.

Compare: TheBlackDeath, UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic

* UsefulNotes/DavidLloydGeorge: He caught the virus during a ceremonial visit to Manchester, resulting in him spending ten days in a makeshift ward at the Manchester Town Hall. For the sake of wartime morale, the severity of his condition was downplayed at the time.

* Creator/WaltDisney: At the time, he had volunteered to be a [[UsefulNotes/TheRedCross Red Cross]] ambulance driver in the war. He was sixteen years old, having lied about his age to get into the war. He actually caught the flu while training in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, recovered, and then went back to finish training and, ultimately, arrive in Europe after Armistice Day.

* Creator/WaltDisney: At the time, he had volunteered to be a [[UsefulNotes/TheRedCross Red Cross]] ambulance driver in the war. He was sixteen years old, having lied about his age to get into the war. He actually caught the flu while training in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago]], recovered, and then went back to finish training and, ultimately, arrive in Europe after Armistice Day.

The Spanish Flu was a global pandemic that ravaged the world in the late 1910s, peaking in late 1918 as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was winding down. The pandemic is traditionally estimated to have killed about 50 million people, more than died in the war, and some estimates go as high as 100 million. Furthermore, it infected some 500 million people at a time when the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. To this day, it ranks as the largest and deadliest pandemic in human history.

The pandemic did not actually originate in Spain. Neutral Spain simply reported on it more honestly due to the lack of wartime censorship, creating the false impression that it was especially bad there. However, the name stuck. The actual origin of the pandemic is unknown to this day, although the most popular theories claim that it began in either China or the United States. The first known case was reported in Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4, 1918.

* Creator/WaltDisney: At the time, he was working as a [[UsefulNotes/TheRedCross Red Cross]] ambulance driver in the war. He was sixteen years old, having lied about his age to get into the war.

* UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt: Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time, the future president caught the Spanish Flu while serving on the troop carrier U.S.S. ''Leviathan''. He became very ill, acquiring a secondary pneumonia infection, but recovered by the time the ship docked in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity.
* UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson: He fell ill during the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Although the press was assured that it was just a cold [[CatchYourDeathOfCold brought on by the "chilly and rainy weather"]] in {{UsefulNotes/Paris}}, it's now understood that Wilson was suffering from the Spanish Flu.

* UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi

* Creator/FranzKafka

* Creator/RaymondChandler

* Creator/WaltDisney: At the time, he was working as a [[UsefulNotes/TheRedCross Red Cross]] ambulance driver in the war. He was sixteen years old, having lied about his age to get in.

* Creator/MaryPickford

* UsefulNotes/DavidLloydGeorge

* Creator/WaltDisney
* Creator/LillianGish

* Creator/EdvardMunch

* UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt
* UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson

The Spanish Flu was a global pandemic that ravaged the world in the late 1910s, peaking in late 1918 as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was winding down. The pandemic is traditionally estimated to have killed about 50 million people, more than died in the war, and some estimates go as high as 100 million. Furthermore, it infected some 500 million people at a time when the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. To this day it ranks as the largest and deadliest pandemic in human history.

The Spanish Flu was a global pandemic that ravaged the world in the late 1910s, peaking in late 1918 as UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was winding down. The pandemic is traditionally estimated to have killed about 50 million people, more than died in the war, and some estimates go as high as 100 million. Furthermore, it infected some 500 million people at a time when the world population was approximately 1.8 billion.

No doubt due in part to that wartime censorship, the Spanish Flu has long been overshadowed by World War I. In older works set during the relevant time period, you'll be lucky if there's any mention at all that an apocalyptic influenza outbreak was going on at the same time as the war. This has been somewhat corrected in recent decades, and nowadays, the Spanish Flu will, at the very least, merit a token mention in most fiction about World War I. It also tends to be brought up [[HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure as a comparison]] in works dealing with ThePlague.